Saturday, April 29, 2017

1968Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for John S. Knight, for a
selection of his Editor’s Notebook weekly columns, largely opposing the Vietnam
War and defending the public’s right to protest. He had begun the column in
1936 and wrote it for four decades, “in a style that would range from the
wistfully poetic to the angry and agonizing,” according to Knight biographer
Charles Whited.

1971 Pulitzer Prize for
General Local Reporting for coverage of the National Guard shootings that
killed four students and wounded nine at Kent State University on May 4, 1970.
It included seven pages of stories and photos in the May 5 paper, and ongoing
stories in the following weeks that attempted to answer questions about the
shootings and the decisions that led to the confrontation.

1987 Pulitzer Prize for
General News Reporting for “The Goodyear War.” The special section
reconstructed the attempt by investors, led by Sir James Goldsmith, to take
over Akron’s biggest employer and loyal corporate citizen, Goodyear. It examined
the potential effects on 13,000 local employees, schools, thousands of
retirees, the United Way, churches and many other facets of community life.

1994Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for “A Question of Color,” a
series that urged readers to examine and discuss race relations, attitudes and
how race plays a part in housing, crime, business and education. It led to the
formation of Coming Together, an organization that promoted racial harmony and
cultural awareness, and President Bill Clinton came to Akron to take the
community’s dialogue to the rest of the country in a televised town meeting.

Jack Knight
inherited the Akron Beacon Journal from his father, C.L. Knight, in 1933, at
the depth of the Great Depression.

There was no money
to meet the payroll. Employees received tokens they could take to local
merchants who would accept them as IOU’s.

When he died in 1981
at the age of 86, Jack Knight had built a newspaper empire that was then the
nation’s largest in terms of circulation. He was worth more than $400 million.

When JSK took his
company public in 1969, he told stock analysts:

“Ladies and
gentlemen, I do not intend to become your prisoner.”

25 years after his death, Wall Street got its revenge in 1974. An
obscure money manager in Florida, trying to meet a profit target for his
wealthy investors, forced the sale of the company. That was a sad day in
American newspaper history.

JSK’s motto: “Get the truth and print it.”

In 1968, the year he
won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing for his opposition to the Vietnam
war and for his support of the free speech rights of dissenters on American
campuses, his Detroit Free Press and Charlotte Observer also won Pulitzers,
making Knight Newspapers the first publisher in history to win three in the
same year.

The BJ often helped
employees finance home and car loans. That came from the top.

Bill Catalona
caddied at Akron area golf courses for JSK. Catalona was accepted to medical
school but had no money to pay his tuition, JSK gave him the first John S.
Knight scholarship. Dr. Catalona practiced in Muscatine, Iowa. They were
friends for life.

John is contributing editor at Southland Golf and a former reporter for the
Orange County Register in California. John is a Cincinnati Xavier University
graduate from New York City.

Rebecca is deputy Features Editor at the OC
Register.

At Ol’ Blue Walls, with the late Pat Englehart
cracking the whip, John was a key reporter in the BJ’s coverage of the 1970
Kent State killings by the National Guard that brought the newspaper a Pulitzer
Prize.

The
Orange County Register's Grand Avenue building where John roamed the newsroom for
years was swapped for quarters in Anaheim last week.

Janice Grant Strode, who was a BJ Circulation secretary for 25 years, passed
away Tuesday, April 18.

﻿

Janice was born in Mexico, a town in Missouri, but the family moved
to Akron when she was 2 years old.

I don’t know the years that Janice worked at Ol’ Blue Walls but she’s
in the 1981 employee directory that Advertising Makeup retiree Mike Williams
provided, the 1978 and 1979 BJ Christmas promos and in the 1979 and 1998 employee directories that Ken Krause has.

“In the next year's Christmas message (December
1978) she got the best seat of the group.”

Janice's cousin, Andale Gross, confirmed that Janice worked in Circulation.

Janice’s obituary:

Janice M. Grant Strode

Janice M. Grant Strode, 74, went home
to be with the Lord on Tuesday, April 18, 2017.

Janice was born in Mexico, Missouri in
1942 to Raymond and Gladys Grant but moved to Akron, Ohio when she was only two
years old. Janice retired from the Akron Beacon Journal as a secretary after 25
years of service; she was a member of Mount Calvary Baptist Church. She was a
loving wife, mother, grandmother, greatgrandmother, sister, aunt, and friend to
all her family and friends; she will be greatly missed.

Funeral Services will be held on
Tuesday, April 25, 2017. Calling hoursare from 11 a.m. to 12
p.m., and the service will begin at 12 p.m. at Mount Calvary Baptist Church,
442 Bell Street, Akron, OH 44307. Pastor Jack Streeter officiating, Interment
at Greenlawn Cemetery, 2580 Romig Road, Akron, OH 44320. In lieu of flowers,
please make donations to The American Heart Association at 3505 Embassy Pkwy.
Suite 100, Akron, OH 44333. Procession will form and condolences may be sent to
896 Valdes Ave., Akron, OH 44320.

Erin Marie Moran, the Joanie who loved Chachi on the “Happy Days”
TV series (1947-1984), is dead at age 56.

Erin Moran

Marion Ross and Tom Bosley played her parents. Ronnie Howard played
her brother, Richie.

The #1 draw on the series was Henry Winkler as the cool and hip The
Fonz.

Anson Williams played Potsie, Don Most played Ralph Malph, Pat
Morita played Arnold, Penny Marshall was Laverne, Cindy Williams played
Shirley, Robin Williams, who died in 2014, played Mork for 2 episodes before
getting his own series.

Monday, April 17, 2017

He was married to
his second wife, Sandy Teepen, for more than 30 years. He had been battling
various illnesses since a kidney transplant 10 years ago.

Tom Teepen

When he was 7, Tom
would write stories on paper and hand them out to people because he wanted to
be a newspaperman.

The Ohio University grad
began his career with the Dayton Daily News (1958-82) and with the Constitution and Cox Newspapers columnist (1982-2000). He completed a John S.
Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University in 1967, focusing on
African studies.

Marilyn Geewax, a
former BJ business reporter who was at the Constitution before becoming a National Public Radio business analyst
living in Washington, said “I always thought of him as a Renaissance beatnik.”

Saturday, April 15, 2017

At the Beacon Journal you could tell what kind of a day Tom Moore
was having when he was the newsroom makeup man by counting the number of “Goddammits.”

Well, I’m guessing that, on his wedding anniversary on Friday,
April 14, Tom changed it to “Hot, damn, we made it to 66!”

Daughter Amy Moore saw it from a different viewpoint: “How blessed and lucky am I to have amazing parents that are celebrating 66
years of marriage!!!!”

Tom and Minnesotan Dot were
married in the naval communications chapel in Washington, D.C. Tom was in the Air Force at
Bolling Air Force Base in D.C. and editor of the base newspaper.

Tom's 41-year newspaper career was on
the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Zanesville News (now defunct), Lorain Journal,
Columbus Citizen-Columbus Citizen Journal (both defunct) and the BJ. Plus four
years part-time in the Ohio State Patrol headquarters in Columbus, editing the
patrol's magazine,The Flying Wheel.

After his retirement from Ol’ Blue Walls, Tom didn’t go off the rails. He
went on them, as a conductor for the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. Dot often
made treats for the passengers that she handed to Tom for special delivery.

Beginning in 2004, Tom headed for Fort Myers, Florida in October to publish a daily newspaper
for the Roy Hobbs Baseball World Series for older players run by former BJ
sports editor Tom Giffen, who took that show to Fort Myers three decades ago.

Tom and Dot have four
children, including three daughters who were copygirls at the BJ.

That would be Amy Moore; Caroline Jean
Krack, who lives in Minnesota and retired as a teacher's aide; Katherine Ann
Moore, who lives in Cuyahoga Falls, retiring from the Environmental Protection
Agency after 34 years; and a son also named Tom, who is married to Sabrina
Naylor Moore.

Maybe 93-year-old Doris Mary Ann
Kappelhoffwill show up and serenade Tom with “The Anniversary
Waltz.” Or “Sentimental Journey,” which made Doris famous, or "Pillow
Talk," which brought her an Oscar nomination.

Doris sang to Tom in 1949. Well, to be clearer, and all the other
new Air Force members at the amphitheater.

Maybe you know her better as Doris Day.

Goddammit, Tom, you sure know how to pick the ladies for a lifetime
or for a night of superior singing!

If you want to
congratulate Tom, his phone number is (330) 762-6669. If you’re too lazy to use
your Smartphone, he has a Facebook page.

Former 1970s BJ State Desk reporter Cathy Robinson Strong has
taught journalism in Dubai, the United Arab Emirate for three years.

When
she’s not a journalism lecturer at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand,
where she’s lived for about three decades, Cathy flies to America
regularly to visit family and friends, including her sister, Janet Mullins, in Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Cathy has given
journalism lectures in Japan and Taiwan, water-skiied and kayaked and flown to
Washington, D.C. to accept first prize in the Great Ideas For Teachers
competition at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication in 2013.

She flew to Boston to jump in a hot tub with friend Pam McCarthy,
retired North Canton Hoover High teacher that she hadn’t seen in 35 years.

So it seems logical that Cathy is in Saigon at a cooking class for
Vietnamese cuisine. She learned how to whip up Dragon-fried
egg cake, cabbage parcel soup and other delicacies.

At least Cathy will escape the earthquakes
that hit New Zealand about 15,000 times a year! Except for 100 to 150 quakes
you can feel, you need a seimograph to record them.

Obviously, most aren’t at the level of the San
Francisco earthquake.But Paula and I did
see a lot of damage in Christchurch when we visited New Zealand.